Sacked First Bank Workers Take To the Streets to Protest in Oyo State

Sacked First Bank limited workers took to the streets to protest the sudden sack of 1, 000 people doing work for the bank.

About 100 aggrieved contract staff of Whyte Cleon Limited, an In-sourcing subsidiary of First Bank Limited, who claimed to have already been wrongfully disengaged from service on Wednesday protested in Ibadan, Oyo State.

According to PM News, a number of the sacked workers described their sudden sack as a callous act. The protest took place at the Correspondents Chapel office of the Nigerian Union of journalist, Mokola, Ibadan.

The sacked staff have been drawn from all the branches of the first generation bank said that these were protesting with respect to over 1, 000 of their colleagues who had suffered similar fate.

Addressing a press conference, the aggrieved group said many of the disengaged workers had served the organisation for not less than nine years but that rather than rewarding them with full employment status, the organisation could only disengage them with a brief message service without any benefit, which they also said was unacceptable.

Spokesperson of the group, Mr. Aleem Waheed, insisted that they were not engaged by WhyteCleon Limited, but by In-sourcing Limited, a subsidiary and Human Resourcing arm of First Bank and they worked and were being paid by First Bank Limited.

According to him, the sacked workers with varying years of service ranging from seven to nine years busily and ably served the lender, adding, “all through our years of service in the bank, many anomalies have been ongoing. For example, they don’t pay us some bonuses and allowances which were being enjoyed by full fledged staff of the organisation despite the fact that some people dubbed contract staff have better qualification and years of experience than a few of the full fledged staff”.

Waheed stated that lots of them had served the business without complaints, despite being in the known of several anomalies, and they were being denied some entitlements and benefits that they all worked.

Waheed who claimed that disengagement letters were not handed to any sacked staff as at that time they were told to hand total bank belongings in their custody and stopped reporting for work listed of the entitlements the bank denied them to add: “Pay For Performance, PFP, Up Front, Relocation Allowance, Millage Claim (travel allowance for training)”

The copy of the text that was made available to reporters read, “Dear Colleague, that is to inform you that you are here recalled to Whyte Cleon Limited effective September 8, 2017. Kindly submit all Banks properties in your custody, including handover note, ID card, Token and other documents to your BM/HBS/Supervisor effective Monday 11th September, 2017, you are no longer likely to report to your present location. For further directives or call the number of the officer overseeing your region as indicated below: North Jumai Adams (08091052850), South-South Olalekan Atoyebi (08187078518), West Onoriode Aramogbo (08023417968). Thank you”.

Based on the spokesperson, most SMS were delivered when many of the workers had already reported for duty but unable to sign on unto the machine.

The group appealed to the government, the Central Bank of Nigeria and relevant stakeholders to quickly come to their aid by compelling the bank to pay them for the nine years they had served the organisation.